Dum Laga Ke Haisha: Has the “Dum” of a complete Entertainer
Yash Raj Films have lately digressed from big budget blockbusters and concentrated on small budget movies with content like “Mardaani”, “Bewakoofian” and now “Dum Laga Ke Haisha”.
Some movies come like a whiff of freshness and bowl you over and bring a smile on your face, “Dum Laga Ke Haisha” is one such movie. Set in 1995 Haridwar it transports you to the world of 90’s aptly when Kumar Sanu was the nation’s favorite singer, so is Prem Prakash Tiwari (Ayushman Khurana) who is 10th fail but has a small business of selling cassettes in the by lane of Haridwar, who gets married to Sandhya (Bhumi Pednekar) on his father Chandrabhan Tiwari (Sanjay Mishra) insistence. The only problem is that Sandhya is double of Prem’s size which causes an embarrassment for Prem. How Prem and Sandhya come together and fall in love forms the rest of the story.
Sharat Kataria brings the freshness in the script and still keeps it realistic. Sharat beautifully sketches the main protagonist Prem & Sandhya well. Prem a guy who is good looking but low in confidence and esteem and completely under his father’s influence on the other hand Sandhya who is fat but has no qualms about her weight and is a confident girl. This is where Sharat successfully brings the freshness. Another aspect which stands out in the script is the well etched characters whether it is character of Prem’s father or his mother or his aunt. Some sequences stand out like the fight between Sandhya and Prem through songs of the 90’s. It is the second half which falls prey of a typical Bollywood format and loses its freshness to some extent.
The dialogues are realistic as well as hilarious which lifts the screenplay. Commendable is the way the dialect and the accent have been incorporated in the dialogues.
But what stands out and makes “Dum Laga Ke Haisha” a worth watch are its performances. Ayushman Khurana as Prem Prakash Tiwari is brilliant and gives a stellar performance after his debut “Vicky Donor”. Ayushman successfully captures the nuances of a low confident loser right from the accent to the body language which totally justifies his character of a small town. Debutant Bhumi Pednekar as Sandhya is crackling and shows a spark. Sanjay Mishra as Prem’s father shines and again shows his mettle as a fine actor. Other actors like Seema Pahwa, Alka Amin, Sheeba Chaddha and the rest of the cast do a brilliant job and make the movie worth a watch.
Other departments also impresses whether it is the cinematography by Manu Anand who captures Haridwar beautifully or Production Designer Meenal Agarwal who gets all the nuances right or Darshan Jalan’s Costume design which takes you back to the world of baggie pants and printed shirts.
Music by Anu Mallik is titillating from melodies of 90’s “Tu” and “Dard Karara” to the serene “Moh Moh Ke Dhaage” & “Sundar Susheel” or the sufi touch of “Dum Laga ke Haisha”, all the songs are worth a listen. Do not miss the last song in the credit “Dard Karara” choreographed by Chinni Prakash, which takes you to the days of 90’s when the songs had extras dressed in identical costumes and over the top steps.
Sharat Kataria tough his debut “10 ML Love” which went unnoticed, but he proves his point as a director with this movie and he impresses to a large extent.
Overall “Dum Laga ke Haisha” succeeds in the main purpose of entertaining and which makes you smile at the end… A movie worth of Four Stars….
Movie Rating: 
(4 / 5)